An Epidemic of Elder Abuse Largely Affects Women

Elayne Clift She was an 89-year old woman in good health when she entered a nursing home for physical therapy after she’d fallen and broken her ankle. Three weeks later, her leg was gangrenous. Three months later, she was dead. The nursing home where she’d been treated was fined more than $112,000 for “neglect,’ a charge the nursing home director refuted. But the doctor’s orders, which called for monitoring the circulation in her leg and checking her skin for swelling or rednessevery shift had never been followed, nor was her wound bandage ever changed. Even when the woman complained of excruciating pain the staff simply gave her pain medication. After a physical therapist said her leg smelled like “rotting meat” she was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. Gangrene had set in and an amputation was performed. She died shortly afterwards. That is a true account, cited in the 2009 report, “Elder Abuse: A Women’s Issue,” published in the Older Women’s League (OWL) Mother’s Day Report that year. It is still considered the go-to document on women and elder abuse because there is precious little other disaggregated data or information relating to how elder abuse affects women. Here’s what we do know.  Elder abuse, defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as “any abuse and neglect of persons age 60 and older by a caregiver or another person in a relationship involving an expectation of trust,” affects women disproportiona...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Aging Source Type: blogs